Administrative Support, Divest Tyne & Wear campaign

The Divest Tyne & Wear campaign brings together local people who are concerned about climate breakdown and want to make a difference. Our goal is to make a big impact on the driving cause of greenhouse gas emissions – the extraction and burning of fossil fuels – by persuading one of the UK’s biggest council pension funds to stop investing in oil, gas and coal.

A volunteer to support the administration of our campaign planning will strengthen our ability to succeed with this vital campaign.

We will value your help to

• plan our meetings,
• prepare minutes,
• supervise our filing and
• assist with the management of our correspondence.

Every local council taxpayer from the Scottish Border to the border with County Durham has their money flowing into Tyne & Wear Pension Fund because it is the scheme run by the six local councils; the same applies to the pension contributions of more than 180,000 pension fund members in our area. Tyne & Wear Pension Fund investments include tar sands, fracking, controversial overseas schemes and companies increasing their extraction.

These are harming all our futures; changing to less harmful investments will protect our futures.

Many other huge pension funds have switched out of fossil fuels – change for our area is achievable and overdue!

Availability needed:

• approximately two hours per week to assist with preparation for the Monthly Meeting (such as ensuring reports are in shared folders); the times are flexible to suit the volunteer.
• Three/four hours each month to assist with preparation of the Monthly Meeting Agenda, support the drafting of Minutes, and make contact as needed with campaign organisers to gather key information.
• Ideally the volunteer would have a reasonable amount of availability across the year, although a deputy is provided for holiday and sickness cover.

More information about Divest Tyne & Wear is available at https://southtynesideassembly.org.uk/divest/

This includes links to other outlets. Our website, mailing list, outreach and social media reach hundreds of people; through them, we seek to share information about events and activities to keep our supporters informed about relevant events and training.

Skills

WRITING: Basic skills of punctuation, grammar etc are needed; experience of prep of Agendas and Minutes are useful but training can be provided.

FILING: Experience of filing and archiving will be useful, including use of shared folders (however, shared working can be supported through guidance and training) FORMATS: Familiarity with standard file types will be needed (e.g. Word, Excel)

ONLINE COMMUNICATION: Experience with email management will be a helpful extra but not essential (including creation of distribution groups, understanding confidentiality, archiving).

RELEVANT EXPERIENCE:

• Familiarity with using laptop to produce documents, share folders and manage communications (need not be for professional purposes, personal experience may be very relevant)
• Experience of seeking/checking information
• Awareness of and interest in climate issues (not vital)

QUALITIES:

• Interpersonal skills (to work remotely with other volunteers in the team)
• Reliable